


Wherever it's Christmas

by betawho



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Christmas, Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/pseuds/betawho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amy decides it's time to celebrate Christmas in the Tardis, whether the guys like it or not. </p><p>With all of history to choose a tree, go Christmas shopping, and cook Christmas dinner, Christmas becomes an adventure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“We missed Christmas!” Amy declared from the top of the stairs.

Rory and the Doctor looked up from where Rory was handing the Doctor tools as the Time Lord fixed something under the console.

“Nonsense,” the Doctor said, “this is a time machine, it can be Christmas anytime you want.”

“In that case I declare tomorrow to be Christmas,” Amy said as she stumped down the stairs.

“Tomorrow!” Rory said with a yelp.

“Why not today?” the Doctor asked as he jumped up and flexed his fingers, ready to type in coordinates. "I seem to remember they have a very good Christmas on...”

“Oh, no. We’re not just going to gate crash someone else’s Christmas, we’re going to make our own.” She slung an arm around each of them. “My very first Christmas with my boys,” she said with satisfaction.

Rory groaned.

“What?” The Doctor stared at Rory, hearing something in that despairing tone.

“That’s why she wants it tomorrow,” Rory said.

The Doctor shook his head. “I’m not getting it.”

“Preparations!” Amy said with glee, she twirled away from them and started pacing, ticking items off on her fingers. “We’ll need a Christmas tree, and decorations, and food to cook for Christmas dinner, and presents, and no peeking!” she turned and glared at the men, stabbing an accusing finger at them. Both men reflexively bobbed backward from that pointing finger.

“We’re going to do this up right!” Amy plopped her hands on her hips and glared at them to defy her.

“Why do I get the feeling it would be easier to stop an invasion of Sontarans?” the Doctor said quietly to Rory.

“Because it probably would,” Rory whispered back.

 

“The first thing we need is a tree!” Amy said, turning in a slow circle and surveying the console room looking for a good place to put it. “There’s bound to be loads of sparkly stuff in here we can use for decorations but first we need a tree.”

The Doctor, always game for anything, shrugged, grinned and set his fingers on the keyboard, ready to type in coordinates.

“What kind?” he asked.

“What kind what?” Amy said, pulling her gaze from the unused area in front of the scanner.

“What kind of tree? Oak, Boabab, Willow? They decorate palm tress in Australia don’t they?” He started to type in coordinates.

“Pine,” Rory said quickly.

“Fir,” Amy said at the same moment.

They looked at each other.

“An evergreen tree,” Rory said. “Something with needles.”

“But not porcupine needles,” Amy put in quickly, “or real fur.”

“Okay,” the Doctor drawled looking back and forth between them. “How about something from the American West? 1890?”

Amy looked at his questioning, little boy face and grinned. “I’ll wear cowboy boots. Come on, Rory, lets go get changed. Something with snow, Doctor!” Amy yelled over her shoulder as she dragged Rory up the stairs to the costume room.

Thirty minutes later the Doctor stood beside the Tardis door in bowtie and tweed with a huge, double-bladed ax propped on his shoulder.

Amy and Rory clattered down from the console dais and joined him, Amy was dressed in fur trimmed boots and a white fur stole, looking like some sort of Hollywood Queen out of White Christmas. Rory was more practically dressed in jeans, plaid shirt, jacket, and hunters cap with ear flaps, looking for all the world like a scrawny lumberjack.

“What’s the ax for?” he asked.

“Yeah, I though you’d have some sort of lightsaber or something to cut the tree down with,” Amy said.

“I read up on Christmas traditions while you were changing. Hence,” he hefted the ax, it looked like some sort of Viking weapon, “an ax to chop down the chosen tree with, and...” he opened the door with a flourish, revealing a snowy white hillside. “A winter wonderland for tromping about to find the proper tree.”

Amy squeed and clapped her hands. She grabbed his shoulder and planted a kiss on his cheek then charged out into the knee deep snow.

“I brought cocoa,” Rory said pathetically, as he held up a plaid thermos and glared jealously at the Doctor’s cheek.

“Don’t worry about it, Rory,” the Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, she’s getting away.”

Outside, the Tardis was parked on a snowy hillside. The rich, resinous scent of pine from the scattered trees mingled with the crisp, metallic tang of fresh snow. The sun shone brightly from a cloudless blue sky, glinting sparkles off the snow, adding an odd insulated warmth to the air.

“It’s perfect!” Amy scooped up a wave of snow and tossed it high. It scattered and swirled away on a gentle breeze, coating her hair and stole with diamond sparkles. She laughed.

The Doctor and Rory grinned.

—

* * *

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 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	2. Chapter 2

Amy ran over and grabbed them both by the hands and hauled them off. “Come on. Let’s find the perfect tree!”

—————

“But we can’t,” Rory protested. “It’s 60 feet tall!” He stared up at the huge pine tree the Doctor had chosen.

“It’ll fit in the Tardis,” the Doctor said, hands in his pockets looking up at his tree with satisfaction.

“Even if it’ll fit in the console room, how would we get it through the door?” Rory asked.

The Doctor opened his mouth to explain.

“Never mind,” Rory said. “Even if we could get it inside, I don’t fancy having to use a forklift to put the star on the top.”

“Oh, but it’ll be great,” the Doctor protested. “We can use gravity disks and ...”

Amy looked up at the tree, it was a huge monster of a thing that bears could live in. She’d always known the Doctor had a warped sense of scale. This only confirmed it.

While the Doctor and Rory bickered back and forth, Amy leaned sideways and felt her eyes light up.

“Shut up, the pair of you!” She looked at them and pointed behind the monster tree. “Look.”

With quizzical expressions the Doctor and Rory sidled sideways toward her and peered around the corner of the tree. There, beyond it, lay the most perfectly symmetrical fir tree either of them had ever seen.

Amy hefted the Viking ax and followed the two men as they went to investigate the find.

They walked all the way around it, in opposite directions, leaving a perfect ring of tracks in the snow.

Rory nodded. “It doesn’t even have an angel patch.” He rubbed his hands together, part to ward off the cold, but mostly in satisfaction.

“Angel patch?” the Doctor asked, standing casually beside him with his hands in his pockets.

Rory blew into his hands as Amy walked up behind them dragging the ax.

“Most trees have an ‘angel patch,’ a side of the tree less perfect than the others, like a bald spot or something, so you’ll know which side of the tree to turn to the wall. Kids call the bad spot an ‘angel patch.’ Like an angel put it there so they’d know.”

“I see.” The Doctor frowned for a moment at this odd belief, then his face lightened into a beautiful smile. “Humans,” he said with fondness. “You find beauty in even the ugly spots.”

He clapped his hands together making Rory jump. “Right!” He reached for the ax handle. “I guess it’s time to chop down our tree.”

“My job, I think,” Rory said, taking the handle from him. He hefted the heavy double-bladed ax and staggered. Amy and the Doctor stepped back out of range. But Rory stubbornly caught his balance, determined to do this right with Amy watching.

He hefted the blade up, preparing for his first swing then stopped. “This isn’t an alien tree is it?” he asked the Doctor. “I mean, it’s not going to start bleeding or something when I cut it down?”

“No. We’re on Earth. It’s a normal tree.”

“Oh, right. Good.” Strange how it hadn’t even occurred to him to ask what planet they were on. The American West didn’t necessarily mean Earth, especially with the Doctor driving. Oddly reassured, he took a deep breath of the fresh air, hefted the ax and took a swing.

It was a struggle to keep his balance with the heavy ax, and he felt sure he was going to cut his own leg off a couple of times, but Rory eventually go the three chopped down.

With a last stroke the tree creaked, the last thread of wood splintered,and the tree separated from the trunk.

And floated.

“Wha?” Rory stepped back in surprise. The tree bobbed in the breeze - a foot of space between the bottom of the severed trunk and the treestump.

He heard the sonic screwdriver whirring behind him. The Doctor had the sonic pointed at the floating tree. Amy was jumping up and down with glee, clutching onto the Doctor’s sleeve.

“Don’t tell me,” Rory said, wiping the sweat off his face with his own sleeve. “The sonic has antigrav capabilities as well.”

“No, of course not. I put a couple of grav discs on the tree when we were studying it. The sonic is just working as a remote.”

Outdone again. Rory sighed and picked up the ax.

As he stood up he caught sight of Amy’s boots standing in front of him. He followed them up her long long hose-clad legs to her typical miniskirt (even here in the snow.) When he reached her face she was grinning. She knew what she did to him. At least she wasn’t shy about it.

She held out a cup of cocoa, poured from the thermos he had brought along.

“Thank you,” he said. Lost in his normal “Amy Daze” he swallowed the sweet, hot liquid and drank in the bright, happy sparkle in her eyes.

She took the cup back, screwed it on the thermos, and tossed the whole thing in the snow behind her. “You were great. Thank you,” she said, and kissed him. Not a quick peck on the cheek, but a long, deep, curl his toes in his boots, kiss.

She drew back and licked her lips, she pushed a lock of red hair behind her ear. “You taste like chocolate.”

“Uh, huh.” He was always so articulate after Amy kissed him.

“Come on. The Doctor’s getting away.”

She picked up the ax and he retrieved the thermos. They caught up with the Doctor who was thirty yards away, striding back toward the Tardis with the sonic screwdriver propped backward on his shoulder and the tree bobbing along, upright, behind him.

 

“Couldn’t you have made the door bigger or something?” Rory groused when they finally managed to manhandle the tree through the Tardis doorway.

Fir needles covered the Tardis floor and a few bald branches had been rubbed in their once perfect tree.

They were all covered with itchy resinous sap and their clothes and hair were skewed from fighting the reluctant tree.

The fir tree lay limply, like a hunter’s prize carcass, on the floor in front of the scanner. It looked as tired as they did.

“I could,” the Doctor admitted as he shrugged his jacket straight and adjusted his bowtie.. He smoothed his hair back. “But I thought wrestling the tree through a too-small doorway was part of the Christmas tradition,” he said. “I had to set the door not to expand.”

Amy and Rory turned to stare at him. They both looked like they’d been through a fight with a polecat. Hair sticking out in all directions, scratches on arms and faces, and tree sap sticking their clothes together.

Remembering how they’d pushed and hauled and twisted the tree through the door, the Doctor pulling, Rory pushing, Amy holding the doors out of the way, and the grunts and swearing and yelling of bad advice as the tree gradually screeched its way in past the door frame...

Amy started to grin.

Rory stared openmouthed at the innocent Doctor.

“What?” the Doctor asked.

Rory threw back his head and laughed, his face shining with the bright, sparkling smile he so rarely gave.

—

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

Amy hung the last decoration and stepped back. It was the most beautiful Christmas tree she'd ever seen. And it was entirely covered in junk.

Well, not _entirely_ , she admitted. They had managed to find one box of old Victorian Christmas ornaments. But the rest was pure improv, sparkly bits ranging from fluid links to fiber optic cables that the Doctor had wired up to flash in different colors. They had even made some tinsel out of some silvery, shredded alien packing material.

She stood back with satisfaction. They'd set the tree up just to the right of the scanner. Rory had even hung a wreath they'd found on the coat rack on the other side. There was plenty of floor room for presents.

"What now?" the Doctor asked, hands in his pockets, smiling at the jury rigged tree.

"Now? Macy's!" Amy said.

Rory groaned.

 

They all gathered around the Tardis console, preparing to dematerialize. "Macy? Who's that? Where does he live?" The Doctor flexed his fingers over the keypad.

"Macy's," Amy said in a long-suffering tone, "the department store?" The Doctor just stared at her blankly. Amy sighed and rolled her eyes. "Say, 2012, New York, New York."

"Ah!" The Doctor entered coordinates and set them spinning.

"Bit of a problem, Amy," Rory pointed out. "What are we going to do for money?"

"Oh, the Doctor's got loads of it in the wardrobe."

"He does?"

"I do?"

"Yeah. That whole wall at the far end. Covered in dust. Don't you ever look in there? You've got all kinds of money in there, doubloons, pounds, dollars, there's even some weird looking shells, and a drawer full of mechanical spiders. Though I don't know what they're for."

"Show me!" The Doctor grabbed her hand and sprinted off for the wardrobe.

 

Amy pointed to the far end of the huge room. "Over there."

The Doctor ran over and started tossing aside heaps of clothing that had washed up against the cupboard wall like drifts of snow.

He opened one of the cupboard doors to reveal a complex array of electronics on the left side, and a tiered rack of bins on the right. He opened the bins up, one by one, and sure enough they contained British pounds and American dollars of different years' vintage, wampum shells, Spanish doubloons, and a variety of coinage, including the spiders.

He stared at the electronics, bent and flipped a few switches. "How did you find this?" he turned and asked Amy. "I've been looking for this for years. It's standard on all Tardises but _I could never find it!_ " He glared up accusingly at the ceiling.

Amy shrugged. "I was just in here trying on clothes and there it was."

"So money is no problem then?" Rory asked.

"No!" The Doctor grinned and started loading up Amy and Rory's arms with small green American bills.

"Uh, wait a minute," Rory said. "Isn't this counterfeit?"

"Of course not!" the Doctor said, affronted. "Time Lords are very careful about that. They'll never know the difference. Can't be going around destabilizing economies."

"Yet you intend to let Amy loose in Macy's with free money?"

"Well," the Doctor said. "Call it economic stimulus."

—

* * *

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	4. Chapter 4

"There you go. Macy's!"

They stepped out into a busy street, the famous nine story building towered over them.

A trolley clanged behind them. Black model T cars rattled down the street spewing smoke. Women walked by dressed in old-fashioned heavy gray coats and button-down shoes. And everyone, men, women, and children wore hats.

"Uh, I don't think this is 2012," Amy said.

"No, more like 1912," the Doctor said.

Rory stepped in front of Amy's miniskirt clad form as a policeman strolled by in his distinctive domed hat, casually swinging his billy club. He didn't see them, or the Tardis, fortunately. 

"You could get arrested wearing that here," Rory glanced down at her miniskirt and long legs.

"Yeah." She eased backwards into the Tardis and the boys followed her. "Don't go anywhere without me!" she yelled over her shoulder as she clattered up the dais stairs. "I'll only be a minute."

And thanks to the temporal mechanics of the Tardis it literally _was_ a minute. Before the Doctor could do more than turn on the scanner, Amy popped back up at the top of the stairs. "What do you think?" she asked, posing coyly.

She was wearing a sleeveless slinky black dress that stopped short of her knees, a long string of pearls, and a cloche hat.

"Uh. He said 1912, not 1920, Amy." 

Amy sashayed down the stairs, seductively dragging a long fur stole, twirling her beads. "Maybe I'll start a fashion."

"It's fine, Rory," the Doctor said, from where he leaned by the scanner controls.

Rory looked down at the minidress which left nothing to the imagination. "Except you're going to freeze to death," he pointed out, swallowing hard.

"That's why I brought this." She held up the stole to reveal it was in fact a large fur coat. "Help me put it on?" she flirted with him over her shoulder, dangling the coat to him on one finger.

He helped her slip into the heavy coat, determindedly ignoring the delicate line of her shoulderblades. She turned and gave him a soft kiss and patted his cheek. "Good boy." She linked her arm through his and yelled at the Doctor over her shoulder, "Come on, let's go shopping!"

 

She dragged them outside, now well muffled in her fur coat. Rory still looked like a lumberjack, and the Doctor, unbelievably, fit right in.

The din clanged in around them, the sound of streetcars and trolleys, the rattle of model T Fords and horse carts, the noisy yelling of myriad people and the overlying smell of coal smoke.

They looked up in awe at the huge, brick building.

"Macy's! I can't believe it!" Amy squeezed Rory's arm in excitement. "I've always wanted to come here."

"We're not going to find any good electronics here though." Rory pointed out, staring at the gaggle of old-fashioned people walking past, little girls in pinafores and men in bowler hats.

"Oh, you 21st Century people and your electronics," the Doctor said. "What kind of electronics did you expect to find in 2012 that's as good as what we've got in the Tardis? No, this is _perfect_. There are all _kinds_ of great presents in there," he waved his hand expensively at the huge edifice. "Games, toys, clothes, books, use your imagination!" He scrubbed his hands together, eyes alight, obviously eager to get started. "And look at that!" He pointed a long finger and ran off. Amy and Rory looked at each other and followed. 

They found the Doctor, 900 year old Time Lord that he was, with his face pressed up against the glass of one of Macy's display windows, surrounded by a gaggle of boys in knee breeches, all who had their faces pressed right beside him.

"Santa's sleigh!" He waved Amy and Rory to join him, without removing his face from the window. "Just lookit!" He pointed. "Those reindeer are covered in real hide and look at those presents!" He kept his hands around his eyes to better see the jumbled pile of silvery, shining presents tumbling out of Santa's sleigh.

"Look, it moves!" Rory yelled abruptly, making Amy jump. He dragged her over to the display window where two of Santa's reindeer were slowly galloping in place and lifting up as if they were about to fly. "How does it do that?"

Rory pressed his face to the window too and Amy rolled her eyes looking at the lineup of 10-year-olds, the Doctor, and Rory. "You boys and your toys!" She shook her head and something caught her eye. She followed the glint to the next window which sported an array of porcelain dolls and the biggest, most elaborate Victorian dollhouse she'd ever seen. 

"Oh, wow!"

—

* * *

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	5. Chapter 5

They did the full circuit of windows, and ended up frozen solid and happy as clams.

When they finally bustled their way inside, the sudden lack of freezing wind made it seem positively warm.

And their eyes popped all over again. High ceilings, huge chandeliers, massive pillars, and every inch covered with Christmas decorations. Islands of glass and wood display cases stretched as far as the eye could see, decked with holly and pine boughs and big red bows. Real crystal snowflakes hung from the ceilings, and handpainted Christmas ornaments donned every possible surface.

The Doctor twirled around in delight, arms outstretched, narrowly missing some passersby.

"It's so beautiful," Amy said, as she slipped off her hat and looked around.

"Why wouldn't it be?" the Doctor asked in surprise.

"Well, I guess I always thought of old stuff as being old," she turned and looked at him, "sort of tatty, you know, like it's been stored in the attic for ages." She looked around, the chandeliers sparkled in her eyes. "It's all brand new!"

Rory shook his head and nodded at the same time, agreeing, speechless.

The Doctor grinned and clapped them both on the shoulders. "Come on. I'm freezing. Let's get something hot to drink."

Fortunately there was a little coffee shop conveniently situated by the entrance, serving hot cocoa, mulled cider, tea, and delicate little pastries and cookies.

"How did you know this was here?" Rory asked suspiciously. "Have you been here before?"

"No," the Doctor said. "I followed my nose."

Rory inhaled, he had to admit it smelled wonderful, cinnamon and nutmeg, and sugar. The shop was built in a nook between two storage rooms, with a little courtyard of tiny tables out front between the pillars. Shoppers bustled by beyond the pillars, matrons in big hats, and harried young clerks, and families of every description. But here was an oasis of tranquility.

They sat at a little round table in spindly chairs and a waitress brought them their drinks. Rory reached into his pocket for money then paused awkwardly, as if remembering.

He pulled out a sheaf of bills, looked at them oddly for a moment, then peeled off the top one and gave it to the waitress. She made change out of her frilly apron pocket and left them to their drinks.

Rory looked down at the bills in his hand. They looked different. One of the bills had a buffalo on it. "I thought you gave us money for 2012?" he asked the Doctor.

"I did."

Rory held up the dollar bills. "Then shouldn't these all have the wrong dates on them?"

The Doctor shook his head, reaching around Rory for the best of the Christmas cookies. Rory grimaced and shoved the plate over to him. "As soon as I saw where we were, I had the Tardis change them," the Doctor said, biting into a tiny gingerbread man.

"But they were in my pocket the whole time!"

"Rory, the Tardis can create whole rooms, you don't think a few bits of paper are going to cause her any problems, do you?"

They settled in to enjoy their snack. Amy and Rory had ordered hot mulled cider, and the Doctor had cocoa. All the drinks had a curled stick of cinnamon in it. They spent several minutes comparing the Christmas cookies and tiny little pecan tarts and fluffy bits of divinity. 

"So," the Doctor said, licking his fingers. "How are we going to handle this?"

"I don't want either of you peeking!" Amy said. "Presents are supposed to be a surprise."

"Best if we split up then," the Doctor said.

"This place is certainly big enough," Rory agreed.

"We'll each take a separate floor. How's that? And we'll meet back here in three hours," the Doctor said.

They finished their drinks and cookies, Rory tossed a handful of change on to the table and they went to find a map.

"Sir, sir!"

Rory turned back to see the waitress trotting up behind them.

"You forgot this, sir." The waitress held out a small yellow coin. He took it back and glanced at it, it had a picture of an Indian head on one side and the word five on the other. He handed it back. "You can keep that."

The waitress's eyes opened wide, "You mean that, sir?"

"Yes, it's all yours."

The waitress squealed and grabbed him in a hug. Rory froze in surprise. Amy grinned. Before Rory could do anything, the waitress let him go and ran back to her friends chattering excitedly.

"What's the big deal?" Rory said nonplussed. "It was only five cents."

"Five dollars," the Doctor corrected.

"Still," Rory shrugged.

"This is 1912, Rory. Five dollars is probably like $100 here now," Amy said, smiling.

"Oh," Rory looked after the departed waitress, he shrugged. "Merry Christmas," he said lamely.

The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "Good man!" 

 

They got directions to the visitors center from a man in a cowboy hat and had almost reached it when the Doctor suddenly stopped.

"Come on, Doctor," Amy said, impatient to start shopping.

"Wait, wait, wait!" the Doctor said, holding up a finger. "Listen."

Amy and Rory cocked their heads, they looked at each other, they couldn't hear anything but the babble of hundreds of shoppers around them.

"This way!" The Doctor took off through the crowds, Amy and Rory, mystified, followed him.

The Doctor dodged and weaved his way through the shoppers, collecting scowls and indulgent looks in equal measure.

He burst out into an atrium, a huge area in the center of the block. The store levels rose on all sides with this courtyard in the center. There were Christmas trees everywhere, and quaint little stalls selling knickknacks of every description.

And then they heard it. Singing.

In the center of the covered courtyard, on a raised dais, a chorus was singing Christmas carols.

Men and women dressed in deep blues, and greens, and burgundy velvet, they sported snowy white song books and festive hats, the men in white top hats, and the women in white bonnets.

They had drawn a crowd and the Doctor had muscled his way to the front.

Amy and Rory just caught the last of "Oh Little Town of Bethlehem" before the chorus began a rendition of "Carol of the Bells" sung a cappella in two-part harmony.

It was beautiful. Rory looked at Amy in surprise. They both turned to listen, entranced.

The Doctor waved his hands, self-conducting, a big grin on his face.

The music rose and fell, swelled and soared, reaching a joyful crescendo that raised the hairs on their arms.

The song ended and the crowd applauded. The Doctor whistled and clapped the loudest. A couple of the young women in the choir blushed at the fulsome praise.

Amy grinned at them and dragged the Doctor away before he could make an even bigger spectacle of himself.

"That was _wonderful_!" the Doctor enthused, dragging his heels and looking back as the chorus started on a rendition of "O Holy Night."

"I've heard choruses sung from the castrati monks of the medieval church to the crystal chorus of the Lights of Illumination and that's the most beautiful rendition I've ever heard. Oh, it was worth the trip just for that!"

Amy couldn't help grinning at his obvious ebullience. He was so jazzed. He was practically bouncing from toe to toe.

"Well, not to put a damper on your enthusiasm, St. Nick, but we _are_ here to shop," she pointed out.

"Oh, right, yes." His fingers still twitched to the music. "Let's go find a map." He led them back into the main part of the store with many looks backwards over his shoulder.

 

They found a map at the visitors desk, except it wasn't a map like they'd find at a modern mall with a "You are here," star on it. Instead it was a written list of what was on each floor.

"I'll take the first floor," Amy said, seeing it listed as clothing, jewelry, and housewares.

"I'll take the second floor," Rory said, seeing it listed as sporting goods and hunting equipment.

"And I'll take the third floor," the Doctor said seeing books listed.

They split up. Amy took off through the aisles of display cases, once the Doctor reminded her that in America the first floor was the ground floor. The Doctor and Rory headed for the stairs.

Rory waved the Doctor off in the hallway to the second floor and the Doctor continued upward.

As soon as Rory was out of sight, the Doctor jumped up on the banister and slid back down the stairs. He hopped off neatly at the end, ignoring the outraged cries and scolding looks.

Too bad they were a bit early for the escalators. He always loved a good escalator.

He bent and peered around the corner, Rory was heading for "sporting goods."

Excellent.

 

Rory looked around at the huge sporting goods department. It was different than the women's department downstairs, more rugged, more aimed at the male customer. It even smelled like men up here, leather and wood and saddle wax.

He puttered down a few aisles looking into this and that, watching what the other male shoppers were discussing. Eventually, he started to feel comfortable. Sporting-goods hadn't changed that much. The uniforms he saw were certainly different. But a ball was a ball whatever age you were in.

He ended up in the fishing department. Fishing equipment hadn't changed much in a century. Modern stuff was made out of plastics and nylon while this stuff was made out of wood and brass. But a tackle box was still a box with lots of compartments, and a fishing rod and reel was still basically the same. Although he had to admit these wooden bamboo rods had more class than the tacky plastic ones he'd seen down the local shop.

Absorbed in comparing possible purchases - he seemed to remember hearing the Doctor say he used to fish - Rory didn't notice the tweed shoulder and young face with floppy hair that leaned sideways out of the aisle beyond him.

The Doctor eased himself back behind the shelf and grinned. What better way to discover what his friends would like for Christmas, than to see what things they went looking for first? He hadn't been hunted across endless worlds for no reason. Spying on a couple of villagers from Leadworth would be a cinch.

 

Amy regretfully let the dress slide back down on the hangar and forced herself out of the clothing department. She wasn't here to shop for herself, not that the Doctor hadn't given them enough money to buy anything they wanted, but she was here to find something for the guys. She wasn't going to find that in dresses. Although she wasn't entirely convinced that she couldn't talk the Doctor into wearing one, given the right circumstances.

 

The Doctor stepped casually out from behind a rack of dresses as Amy exited the aisle at the far end. He walked up to the rack she had been perusing and pulled out one of the dresses. A sales lady in a demure white blouse and long black skirt came bustling up to him. "May I help you, sir?"

He turned the short fringe-covered dress towards the woman. "Is this the sort of thing young women like to wear these days?" the Doctor asked.

"My, yes. Bright young things are all the rage today. Do you happen to know your young lady's size?"

"Size?" the Doctor said.

The sales lady sighed. "Do you know your young lady's measurements?" she asked hopefully.

"Ah, no. I think I'll have to go ask." The Doctor put the dress back on its rod and walked casually away. The sales lady was called away to another customer. The Doctor casually sauntered back. He pulled back out the dress and scanned it with the sonic screwdriver. 

He flicked the screwdriver open and looked at the readings. A mental image of the dress's dimensions overlaid an image of Amy's dimensions. The two didn't quite match. He let the dress go and pulled out the one beside it and scanned again. No match. No match. Oh, this was nice. Bit long for Amy though. No match. No match. Ah hah! Bright green and covered in sparkly beads. Perfect!

"May I help you, Miss?" the sales lady's voice came over the racks from the aisle beyond. Amy's voice answered, "Yes, I'm looking for..."

The Doctor grabbed the the dress and scarpered.

 

The Doctor had been right, lack of electronics or not, there were loads of great ideas for gifts here, clothes and gloves and hats, toys, and shoes, games, and books, handcrafted Christmas ornaments, art work, and handmade candies.

As the gifts piled up, Amy used some of her largess to hire a string of porters and bell boys to follow her around and carry her packages, like an influential madame in her fur coat followed by a gaggle of ducklings. On the floor above, Rory bought a wood-sided cart and piled it high with presents. The Doctor, seasoned traveler that he was, arranged to have his gifts delivered to the Tardis.

_____

"Don't look!" Amy said as she entered the Tardis, arms piled high with presents.

The Doctor and Rory, who'd already hidden theirs away, rolled their eyes and turned around where they stood beside the console.

Amy clattered up the stairs behind them and disappeared into the hallway. She clattered back down again. Then back up. Then back down. And again. And again.

Rory and the Doctor looked at each other, grinned, and started giggling.

Amy clattered back down the stairs, and back up. She dropped something, and the Doctor and Rory burst out laughing.

"Shut up!" Amy said, as she tromped up the rest of the stairs.

Rory and the Doctor howled, and turned around to look. There was nothing to indicate a regular trainload of presents had just come through.

Amy came skipping back down the stairs, beads dancing, dusting her hands off.

"Well, that's sorted," she said in satisfaction. "Now. Food!"

Rory groaned.

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	6. Chapter 6

Amy handed each of them a sandwich.

"Is this all we get?" Rory asked.  It had been a long time since tea.

"We're cooking for tomorrow.  Deal with it."  She bit into her own sandwich and took a drink of her orange juice.  She plopped down wearily in the console room chair.  She set her glass on the floor and shucked off her old-fashioned shoes.

She massaged her toes while she ate her sandwich.  Rory sprawled in the other chair and the Doctor perched on the steps between them.  He was picking the pickles off of his sandwich one by one and eating them.

"So now what?" he said, running out of pickles and taking a bite of his sandwich.

"Don't tell me," Rory said.  "More shopping."

Amy scowled at him.  "Well, we at least need a grocery list."

"Nope!" the Doctor said.  "This time the Tardis has everything we need."

Amy frowned at him.  "We are not having a Christmas dinner out of your food machine.  All it makes are those bars and sandwiches,"  she shook her sandwich at him.  "I want _real_ food!"

Rory nodded.

The Doctor looked back and forth between them.  "Have either of you ever been _in_ the kitchen?" he asked in disbelief.

 

The Tardis kitchen was a bit like most kitchens, it had running water, high ceilings, lots of light, and lots of countertops. Other than that, things tended to change.

Today it looked like a hodgepodge of old and new.  Like an old manor house that had been partially updated generation after generation until nothing matched, yet it had a warm homey feeling.

It wasn't a room they used a lot, if they didn't eat at their destinations, she and Rory tended to just grab a bar from the food machine in the small lounge near the console room.

"Why is it all the away back here?"  Amy ask as the Doctor ushered them into the kitchen.

"Design flaw of the type 40," the Doctor said. "I keep trying to convince the old girl to move it closer to the console room, but she seems happy with it where it is."  He patted the door frame.

The Doctor seemed perfectly at home.  "So, where do you want to start?" he asked, clapping his hands.

"Turkey," Amy said.

The Doctor thought about it, "Ah ha!"  He ran over and opened one of the cabinets, he rooted around for a bit, and pulled out a huge platter with a half-eaten turkey on it.

"Voila!"  He held it up proudly.  "Christmas turkey.  Sarah made this for us one year.  I was sure there was some left."

Amy scooted forward and looked at the half eaten carcass.  She poked it with a finger.  It was still warm.  "Eww!"  She jerked her hand back with a shudder.  She shook her hand and glared at the Doctor. "We are _not_ eating something you cooked who knows how many years ago," she said in disgust.

Rory agreed, "That's gross!"

The Doctor just stared at them.  "Humans!  You simply do not understand the nature of time," he said, resigned.  "Fine."  He popped a bit of the turkey in his mouth and chewed with remembered fondness.

Rory gagged.

The Doctor returned the turkey to the time cabinet.

"If all you have is leftovers in here," Amy said.  "Then we are going to have to go shopping for ingredients after all."

"No we won't. I have everything we need right here," the Doctor said. He walked over to a wall covered with cabinets and machines.  He started pushing buttons on one of the machines, it looked like an oversized wall oven.

"No, Doctor," Amy protested.  "We don't want any of your reconstituted food, we want _real_ food, fresh food."

"I know that, Amy," the Doctor said, continuing to program.

"Living beings need living food to remain healthy," he said. "Artificial food, no matter how well constructed, is not enough in the long run.  Time Lords figured that out eons ago.  But farming is a bit difficult in a Tardis, even if there's room for it.  So we developed the temporal gardens."

"Temporal gardens?" Amy asked.  The Doctor finished programming and a hologram popped out of the front of the "oven."

Amy jumped back, and scowled at the Doctor.  He gave her an innocent smile.

"What fresh food do you want?" he asked.  "Anything at all."

"Cranberries," Rory said, coming up behind Amy to get a look.

"Cranberries it is."  The Doctor typed in a command and the hologram solidified into the picture of a raised garden bed.  Like the containers some people grew tomatoes in in their backyard.

A tube came down and shot a seed into the soil.  Instantly a little shoot sprouted up and in less than a minute grew up and out into a full blown berry bush with clusters of bright red berries.  Suddenly water started flooding the bin, growing up the sides of the hologram and drowning the bush.

"Doctor!" Rory yelled.  "The water pipe has busted!"

"It's okay, Rory," the Doctor said, as the entire hologram showed under water, air bubbles traveled upward from under the waving leaves and cranberries floated to the surface.

The Doctor pulled open what looked like an oven door, the hologram cut out.  The Doctor reached in and pulled out a double handful of cranberries.

"There you go, fresh cranberries," the Doctor said, pouring them into Amy's hands.  They were still wet. She almost dropped them in shock.

"How did you do that?" she demanded.

He shrugged.  He hit a button and the hologram returned, the water receded, the soil dried, the bush withered and crumbled back into compost, leaving the bin ready for the next order.

"Time Lord, Amy."  He shrugged.  "Not much use mastering time if you can't do something practical with it."

Amy dumped the cranberries into a bowl on the table.  "Rory can make the cranberry sauce and plum pudding," Amy said.  "He's good at that sort of thing."

"You are?" the Doctor asked.

"I am," Rory said.

"Can you make a meringue?" the Doctor asked.

"Yes," Rory said defensively.  "Why?"

"Oh, no reason."  The Doctor shook his head and turned back to his oven.

"I'll make the bread," Amy said. "I make an excellent brioche."

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up as he looked at her.  Amy wasn't the patient type.

"What?"  Amy said, propping her hands on her hips.  "I'll have you know, I'm good with my hands!"

"Yeah," Rory said on a sigh.

Amy jabbed him with her elbow.

"Right then," the Doctor said.  "I'll do the turkey."  He took an egg out of the cabinet and placed it in the oven.  "You know," he said, as he set controls.  "I once met a human who could do this."  The egg hatched and grew into a turkey in seconds.  "Trouble is, he couldn't figure out how to break into the field."

"So who's going to butcher it?"  Amy asked, looking at the full-grown turkey in the hologram.

"Don't look at me," Rory said, stepping back.

"Or me," the Doctor said.  He turned a dial on the machine.  It dinged and he reached in and pulled out a freshly butchered, defeathered turkey, like he was pulling it out of the fridge.  He answered Amy's dubious look.  "Time Lords may like fresh food, but they draw the line at doing their own butchery.  There are machines for that."

"Uhm.  Actually, Doctor," Amy said, "I'm not sure I know how to cook _completely_ from scratch.  For example, I don't know how to make ginger ale for punch."

Rory nodded.

"Oh, no problem," the Doctor said.  "We have supplies too.  It's just you asked for fresh."  He patted the machine. "This is as fresh as it gets."

Rory let his breath out in a whoosh, "Good, I'm not sure I know how to manufacture brown sugar."

"Depends," the Doctor said, off hand, "if you want actual maple sugar or the brown cane sugar sold in your modern stores."

Rory frowned, not knowing if he was serious or not.  "Store-bought sugar should be fine."

The Doctor waved at the cabinets across the room.  "First door, middle shelf.  Should be some raisins in there too."

"Then flour," Amy said, rolling up her sleeves.  "I suppose that machine can make butter for me?" she asked the Doctor.

"Ah, no.  Milk products are a bit trickier, we have to grow the cattle, then breed it, then wait till it calves, then milk it.  Not to mention churning and separating the butter.  Better just to buy it. There should be some in the pantry."

"And I'll need eggs," Amy said.

The Doctor slid open a vertical storage locker beside the machine.  Inside the narrow cover was an array of eggs.  All in little velvet lined cubby holes.  All different kinds, big, little, round, oval, plain, speckled, even a few striped ones.  "What kind?" the Doctor asked.

"Uh, chicken eggs?"  Amy said dubiously.

"Good choice!" the Doctor said.  "Salamander eggs are so rubbery."  He handed her two perfectly ordinary looking eggs.  "And I'll need some herbs."  He turned back to his machine and started programming.

Rory had moved across the kitchen, and was rummaging through the cabinets, pulling out various ingredients.  He turned back to the Doctor.  "Do you have any brandy?"

"Should do," the Doctor said, pulling a huge roasting pan out of one of the lower cabinets and transferring the turkey into it.  "Look in the wine cellar in the corner."  He pointed towards a cabinet without looking up from his work.

 

The Doctor had taken off his tweed jacket and rolled up his shirt sleeves.  He was wearing a long "Kiss the Cook" apron. He had put it on inside out, but Amy could still read the words backwards through the material.

Rory had rolled up his plaid shirt sleeves, and had tucked a tea towel into the waistband of his jeans.

Amy was the only one without an apron.  She'd changed into a pair of comfortable sweats before coming to the kitchen. She was up to her elbows in sticky flour, she looked at her two gorgeous men.  She and her boys.  She grinned.  Her domestic boys.

 

Rory hadn't been able to find everything he needed to make plum pudding.  Once he explained the problem to the Doctor, the Doctor took him over to the "temporal garden" and showed him how to program up whatever he needed.  It was a surreal experience to grow a whole tree in a few seconds just for a handful of fruit.  

Then the Doctor showed him how to process them.  Things could be hulled, seeded, chopped and dried at the push of a button.  Rory accidentally hulled and dried the nuts, ending up with shriveled little things and had to regrow the tree and rehull the nuts all over again.  Who knew there was so much work involved in raisins and prunes? 

Rory watched the tree as it crumbled back into compost.  "Are you sure this is real, Doctor?" Rory asked, drawing the Doctor's attention from the stuffing he was preparing. "That's not just some time elapsed photography to trick us so we'll except reconstituted food it it?"

"No, Rory, it's real."

"You mean there's a whole tree in there? What, is it attached to some big room behind the wall?" he asked.

The Doctor dried his hands on his apron. "No. The temporal garden is dimensionally transcendental, like the Tardis. That's the whole unit." He nodded at the machine that looked like nothing so much as a large microwave.

"You mean there's an _actual_ tiny tree in there?" Rory asked. 

"Yes," the Doctor said.  "Relatively speaking."

 

There was a huge array of odd, complicated looking cooking devices in the kitchen, along with the drawers full of more normal cutlery. Amy and Rory avoided what they didn't understand, but Rory noticed that even the Doctor tended to prefer the simpler tools.  He used a knife to chop up his herbs, and used his hands to mix the stuffing. Although he did wave his hands under an arc shaped device that cleaned his hands with a wavering forcefield instead of water.  It even cleaned under his fingernails. 

With some of the Doctor's kitchen "timers," a cabinet looking device, what would have normally taken hours, aging Rory's pudding or raising Amy's bread, only took moments.

While waiting on her dough to rise, Amy took care of the vegetables. Rory showed her how to program the garden, and they sat at the old, scarred kitchen table and snapped green beans and peeled potatoes, trading anecdotes with the Doctor about past Christmases (some of his were truly unbelievable. The Titanic indeed.)

Once the dough was done, Amy got up to shape her loaves while Rory went to check on his cranberry sauce (some things worked better without any timey-wimey cooking.) 

The Tardis kitchen, like all good, old-fashioned kitchens, had a marble slab built into the countertop specifically for working chilled dough and pastry. Amy divided the dough into thirds and rolled the balls out into long tails. She pressed the tops together, laid out the rolls side by side and started braiding them. 

"You're good at that," the Doctor said. 

"Told you," Amy said smugly. She transferred the first braid into a greased loaf pan she'd prepared earlier. She started on the second braid and the Doctor reached around her to pull a little crock of spices out of the cupboard by her head. She shifted aside to give him room and bumped hips with Rory who was stirring cranberry sauce at the heater on the adjacent counter.

"Is it my imagination," Amy asked.  "Or is this kitchen getting smaller?"

The Doctor and Rory both looked up from their work and looked around.  "I don't think it's a matter of too many cooks this time," Rory said. All the cabinets and tables were still there, but now what had been a spacious manor kitchen had been reduced to the size of a small apartment kitchen.  They were practically standing on each other's feet as they prepared bread, and turkey, and pudding at different counters

"Seems like the Tardis is getting into the spirit of things," the Doctor said.  He jumped up on the counter, ripped open a cupboard and started shoving the contents aside.

"Hey!  Watch the bread!"  Amy said, throwing a tea towel over her bread to protect it.

The Doctor started patting down his pockets.  He realized he wasn't wearing his jacket.

"Rory!" he turned.

Rory had already anticipated him, he tossed the Doctor his sonic screwdriver.

The Doctor dived his head back into the cabinet, he worked on something in the back wall.  There was the clink of jars and the buzz of the screwdriver, and odd flickering lights shone out the cabinet doors.  "Come on, old girl," the Doctor coaxed.  "Give us a little room to breathe."

A soft breeze blew through the kitchen, mingling the scents of cranberries, plums and yeast.

Amy grabbed hold of the counter, dizzy, as the room suddenly stretched back out, like some trick of photography.

"Whoa!"  Rory said behind them as he stumbled and flicked them with bits of cranberry sauce from his stirring spoon.

The Doctor jumped down off the counter. He wiped a red speck off his pantleg and licked his finger. "Mmm!"  Fortunately it wasn't hot enough to burn. He picked up the tea towel and plucked a squishy cranberry out of Amy's hair.

"Thanks," she said, rubbing another splotch off of her nose with her flour covered arm.

"Sorry 'bout that," Rory said.  "She's not going to be doing anything else like that is she?"

"Dunno," the Doctor said. "The relative dimensional stabilizers can sometimes slip, especially the deeper you go into the Tardis.  I've been meaning to look at them.  Neither of us are as young as we used to be."  He patted the countertop fondly.  "But that's for another day!  Rory, have you got the pepper over there?"

Rory tossed him the pottery pepper shaker and the Doctor slipped the sonic screwdriver in his hip pocket and turned back to seasoning the potatoes.

 

"Green beans, peas, asparagus.  I think we've got the greens covered," the Doctor said.  "Cranberry sauce, plum pudding, (with brandy butter!  Yum!)  brioche, butter, potatoes, turkey and stuffing, nuts and fudge (Amy had had to threaten him with the spoon to keep his fingers out of the fudge while she was cooking it.)

"Are we missing anything?" the Doctor asked.

"Brussels sprouts!"  Rory suddenly exclaimed.

"Ugh!  I hate Brussels sprouts!" the Doctor said.

 

Amy and Rory put the last of the dirty dishes into the dish restorer (apparently it didn't wash the dishes, it just restored them to a pre-dirty state). She passed her hands under the cleanser, and automatically wiped them on her tea towel as she turned to survey the kitchen table. With the Brussels sprouts added (Rory had suggested carrots too, but the Doctor absolutely refused) the old trestle table was groaning under the weight of their feast. 

"That's an awful lot of food for just the three of us," Rory observed. 

"Oh, no problem, the more the better. We can put any extra in the nullards and eat it whenever we want," the Doctor said, beaming with satisfaction at the crowded table. 

"Nullards?" Amy said. It sounded like a particularly adolescent insult. 

The Doctor waved his hand at the walls, "Null cupboards. They'll keep the food in stasis until we need it."

"Right then," Amy yawned hugely, cracking her jaw. She rubbed a weary hand over her eyes. "We better put it up then." 

The Doctor saw Rory stifle a yawn too. It had been a long day. The Doctor shook his head.  "I'll time-lock the kitchen. It'll wait." He clapped his hands and shooed the two of them out of the room ahead of him.    

"Right now it's time for all good humans to be in bed."

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click[here](http://archiveofourown.org/users/betawho/works)._  
 _Please take a moment to leave a comment in the box below._


	7. Chapter 7

Christmas morning, Amy stumbled into the console room, yawning, but excited.

She stopped at the head of the staircase and stared.

During the night, the console room had been transformed. The tree still stood below her and to the right, but now every balcony and railing had been decked with streamers of holly and big red bows, a string of Christmas lights twined around the time rotor, and a huge, twinkly wreath had been hung on the inside of the outer doors.

In front of the door, at the foot of the dais, a dining room table had been set out, and covered with a pristine white tablecloth. China, silver, and crystal goblets were set for three, with an elaborate candelabra in the center and silver domed platters gathered around it. Amy couldn't smell anything, but she suspected their Christmas dinner lay under those covers, perfectly preserved.

She felt a presence come up beside her. She turned to look. Rory stood there in his flannel pajamas, his face rough with morning beard. "Did you do all this?" she asked.

He shook his head mutely. He looked at everything, then leaned sideways and looked down over the railing at the tree below. "Oh, wow. I didn't put all those there."

Amy followed his gaze, bending over the banister. Presents were piled knee-deep under the Christmas tree, spilling out well into the floor and even stacked on the sunken steps below them.

"Good morning!" the Doctor said cheerfully.

They jerked up and spun. The Doctor was standing at the foot of the other staircase, beyond the console. He was dressed in a fuzzy, white trimmed, red bathrobe. His legs and feet were bare and the robe was tied with a sash that had a large jingle bell hanging from each end.

"Merry Christmas!" He threw his arms wide.

Amy and Rory looked at each other, squealed, and pelted down the stairs.

They exchanged presents, and opened and exclaimed over and played with them. There was a lot of teasing and finger pointing and "Let me see!" and "Ooh! I wish I'd thought of that" while the Tardis sound system played Christmas carols softly in the background.

Eventually the whole pile was unwrapped. They all three of them sat around the base of the Christmas tree. Discarded wrapping paper drifted like a storm all around them. Presents littered the area, a pink girls bicycle sat propped against the wall under the scanner. A leather soccer ball and shin guards rested on the floor beside it. A pile of board games was stacked under the tree, and an elaborately carved chess set, half set up, lay abandoned on the lower stairs.

The Doctor was surrounded by a model train set, and was examining the bamboo fishing rod lying over his lap. Rory was trying to fit together the pieces of a spherical wooden puzzle, and Amy was half buried in a pile of new garments (some of them black lace) hugging a russet orange teddy bear the Doctor had given her.

"How did you do all this?" Amy asked, drawing the Doctor's attention from his new fishing rod.

He was wearing a dangly red Santa hat over his unruly hair now, a gift from Rory. "Oh, I don't sleep much, you know."

"No, I know that!" Amy said. "But how did you keep it all a secret? I was down here last night putting presents under the tree, and there wasn't any evidence of it then."

"Yeah, me too," Rory said, giving up on the puzzle. "I... wait a minute. When did you bring your presents down, Amy?"

"Dunno, middle of the night. I must have been the first one."

Rory shook his head. "But, I was the first one. There weren't any extra presents here when I..." he trailed off and looked at the Doctor. "How could we _both_ have been the first one down? That doesn't make any sense."

"You forget, Rory," the Doctor said. "You're in a time machine. I figured we'd all want to play Santa. So I configured the internal temporal matrices to separate the timelines."

"What does that mean an English?" Amy demanded.

"I knew we'd all want to leave presents, but none of us wanted to spoil the surprise by seeing everyone else's first. I simply set the Tardis interior time so we'd all be first."

"Is that possible?" Rory said.

"It's Christmas, Rory," the Doctor said, flinging his arms out expansively, his sash bells jingled. "Everything is possible!"

Amy grinned at the image of him in floppy hair and floppy hat. "Then what's with the robe?" she asked. It was rare to see the Doctor not fully dressed.

"I was getting into the spirit of the season. Aren't robes and pajamas de rigueur for opening presents on Christmas morning?"

Amy grinned. She had to admit, he did look adorable sitting there with his bony knees and long toes peeking out. And Rory looked delicious in his whiskers and plaid.

"Speaking of presents," Rory said, crawling back under the tree. "There's one more under here." He pulled out a long flat package; it was the size of a big, flat panel TV.

"Who's it for?" Amy said, leaning forward, squashing her bear.

Rory searched for a name tag. "It doesn't say."

They looked at the Doctor, but he shook his head. "It's not from me." He leaned forward, always ready for a good mystery.

"So where did it come from?" Rory asked.

"Neither of you bought it?" the Doctor asked. They shook their heads.

"Maybe it's from Santa," Amy said.

The Doctor pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his robe pocket (Amy rolled her eyes) and waved it over the package. He flicked it up to look at the readings. "It's not radioactive." Rory scootched back. "There's no chemical explosives, no technology I can detect." The Doctor pushed the screwdriver tines shut and raised an eyebrow. "If there had been any intrusion in the Tardis the cloister bell would have warned us." 

"So what do we do with it?" Rory asked. 

The Doctor worked his jaw, considering. "Open it."

"Are you sure?" Rory and Amy said together. They looked at each other, they had both seen enough of the Doctors "surprises" to be leery.

"Only way to find out what it is," the Doctor said, repocketing his screwdriver. He leaned forward eagerly. "Go on, open it." He nodded. Rory looked at Amy, and they both took hold of a corner of the package. They ripped the paper open diagonally from opposite sides. 

The paper fell away, to reveal a large painting in a heavy, ornate, cherrywood frame. They let out a sigh of relief. Nestled in one corner of the frame were three large silver lockets. Amy pulled them out, each one on a silver chain, but it was the painting that held her attention.

It was three-dimensional. And it was of the three of them, as they looked right now.

Rory reached forward toward the canvas. "Don't touch it!" the Doctor yelled. Rory jerked his hand back.

The Doctor crawled forward, his whole body tense. He took the painting gingerly by the corners and turned it toward him.

The painting, complete with brush strokes, looked like a lenticular three-dimensional image of the three of them. Sitting side by side, smiling. Amy in her nighty with her teddy bear, Rory in his plaid pajamas and whiskered cheeks, and the Doctor in his red bathrobe and dangly hat. The Doctor stared in disbelief, overcome.

"Oh, my love," he said, pressing a hand down flat on the floor, his voice quivering with awe and gratitude.

"What is it?" Rory asked softly. He'd never seen the Doctor in quite this mood before.

The Doctor looked up at him with tears in his eyes. Rory jerked back, shocked.

"Doctor?" Amy said, laying a gentle hand on his back. 

"It's a Memory," the Doctor said in hushed, reverent tones.

Amy and Rory looked at each other over his back. he Doctor gently laid a finger on the painting and suddenly the colors swirled. Amy felt the colors in her mind, like the caress of her mother's hand on her hair, and suddenly she was back on the hillside watching Rory struggle to chop down the tree with that Viking ax.

Rory felt the colors like a friend's hand on his shoulder, and suddenly found himself seeing Amy descending the Tardis stairs in her flapper outfit, felt her flirting with him as he wrapped her in her fur coat.

The colors dissolved and they looked down to see the Doctor had pulled his hand away, the painting was again a painting, somehow made of three-dimensional brush strokes, softly illuminated from the inside.

He took the lockets that Amy had forgotten she was holding and gave one to each of them. He opened the silver, circular-etched cover to reveal a miniature of the three-dimensional portrait.

"What was that?" Rory said. He looked down at the painting. "Where did it come from?"

"It's a Memory," the Doctor said. "Something very rare and precious, even among my people. Literally a slice of frozen time. It's this day. Yesterday, today, everything we did, thought and felt, perfectly preserved. It'll never fade, never grow old, it will always be just as clear as we first experienced it." He pulled on the locket chain, settling the oval between his hearts. He looked up at the ceiling. "Thanks dear."

"What?" Amy said, looking up from the picture in her own locket. "You mean...?"

"It's a gift from the Tardis," the Doctor said, grinning hugely, ignoring the tear track drying on his cheek.

"Huh!" Amy grunted, looking at the console. "And all I got her was some knob warmers." She looked at the crocheted golf club socks that covered two of the Tardis levers. The Tardis background hum warbled smugly, as if the Tardis was purring. Suddenly "Jingle Bells" blared out over the sound system.

Rory yelped and clapped his hands over his ears, dropping his pendant and chain down his shirt front.

Amy laughed. The Doctor propped the painting against the wall, deciding he'd hang it in the library later. He pressed a kiss to his fingers then gently pressed them to the frame. He sat back in the middle of his train track, righted the train, and picked up the fishing rod he'd thrown aside, inspecting it for damage.

Amy started going through her pile of new clothes, her head bobbing along to the music.

The Doctor started singing. "Sing along, Pond," the Doctor said.

Amy joined in, singing along as she sorted through her booty. She slipped the black lace teddy on her teddy bear, just for fun, then stopped, and stared at it with dismay. "Oh, My God!" she yelled.

"What?!" Both men jumped, their heads jerking up, scanning for danger.

Amy stared at her bear in black. She looked up in shock. "We did all that without meeting a single monster!" she said.

Rory huffed and deflated. "God, Amy! You scared the daylights out of me."

The Doctor's face slowly grew into a grin. He held out his Santa-clad arms to her as if he were giving her a present. "Merry Christmas, Amy."

She glared at him. He was acting as if he'd planned the whole thing. She threw aside her teddys, waddled over to him on her knees, and gave him a huge smacking kiss. "Merry Christmas, you smug git!"

"Hey!" Rory protested.

Amy turned and launched herself at him, knocking him over backwards and landing on him. She stretched yourself out full-length on top of him and kissed him until he couldn't breathe. She pulled back and drew her fingers softly down the side of his face. "And Merry Christmas to you too," she purred. Rory groaned. Amy grinned.

She unwound his arms from around her and jumped up. “Come on,” she said, yanking both men to their feet. “Let’s eat!”

—

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